Brand-new public perception survey results indicate fewer citizen-friendly options for providing opinions on administrative services, compared to PAR Monitor 2017/2018. At the same time, public opinion regarding the involvement of citizens and civil society in monitoring services is clearly growing. When it comes to the availability of information on citizen feedback, websites of service providers are no better than before. Such information on received feedback is mostly absent from their online portals, even in its most basic form.

The public views feedback channels as harder to use but stronger effects of external monitoring of service delivery

Perception surveys indicate that around half of the Western Balkan population sees possibilities to give opinions on the quality of services. This perception grew for almost 20% since the PAR Monitor 2017/2018.[1] On the country level, roughly a third of citizens in Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina believe this is the case while in all the others, it reaches more than 50% of population.

In terms of the citizen-friendliness however, things appear to have gotten worse. A striking example is Albania, with 42% less of those surveyed noting that feedback channels are easy to use. In four of the countries, this decline is 30 percentage points or more.

More citizens in the region feel they are involved, together with civil society, in monitoring service delivery by administrations (42% as opposed to 26% previously). This has also led to a growing perception that such involvement has in fact improved service delivery. The difference can go as high as 20 percentage points, as in the cases of Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Service providers remain reluctant to divulge details on feedback from citizens

There is a general lack of transparency of the information shared by citizens as feedback. Like the baseline PAR Monitor, administrations share almost no such information regarding five common administrative services. These include property, business, vehicle registration, obtaining personal documents, and VAT declaration and payment.

Still, some have just started publishing information in some areas – in Albania, for vehicle registration, and in Serbia, there is some basic data on the numbers of received and resolved complaints regarding registering businesses.

Overall, without transparency on feedback and how it is being used, citizen-oriented service delivery is hardly imaginable. Providing details on how users feel about services should become business as usual, but is, instead, lacking for the second monitoring cycle in a row. Overall, the PAR Monitor 2019/2020 has shown few major changes, and a certain level of backsliding in two countries.

[1] As in PAR Monitor 2017/2018, public perceptions on awareness of and usefulness of feedback mechanisms, and availability of feedback information to citizens, are measured through public perception surveys implemented in each of the Western Balkan countries in the same manner. Surveys were implemented in the period from the 5 to 30 May 2020.

9 June 2020 – Today, TEN members took part in the “COVID-19 Pandemic in the Western Balkans: Effects on Democracy, Rule of Law, and Civil Society” closed-door workshop organised by the Aspen Institute Germany. This workshop gathered members of the expert community from the EU and the region along with officials from the EU and its member states. As a basis for discussion, six TEN representatives presented a working paper which addressed some possible long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on critical democratic principles and rule of law in the Western Balkans. The participants also discussed the way forward in the coming period, stressing the importance of empowering civil society, the media, and national parliaments in their watchdog functions and not neglecting women and vulnerable groups as those most affected by the ongoing pandemic. Insights from this discussion will contribute to the forthcoming TEN policy brief, which tackles the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the functioning of rule of law and democracy in the Western Balkans.

This PAR Monitor cycle enables the comparison of trends against the baseline results of the PAR Monitor for 2017/2018 and indicates slight progress at best in the WB generally. Though governments are a bit more diligent in reporting on their work and on the implementation of central planning documents, there has been little change in all aspects of reporting that concern the quality of data – they do not publish open or gender segregated data and performance information on annual results is scarce, for instance, which almost mirrors the baseline PAR Monitor results.

Despite this general picture, there are nevertheless some developments that have brought about notable changes in specific countries in the period between the two monitoring exercises. For example, Kosovo, which scored the best of all countries considered last time, has scored only one point in this round due to the problems in the formation of its government and the acting government’s failure to produce the annual report.

On the other hand, the largest positive developments were recorded in North Macedonia, improving from a very low score in the last round. In this cycle, it assumed the runner-up position of all countries considered due to the settling in of a new government after a period of political unrest, publishing regularly of annual reports, despite scoring zero points last round with no information published.

Apart from these more noteworthy changes, BiH, Serbia, and Montenegro have all recorded slight progress, though nothing too drastic. BiH has improved in terms of its government’s inclusion of gender-segregated data in the information issued about its activities. Serbia’s complete absence of regularity in its government’s publishing of reports on its work plan online has continued, though reporting on central planning documents has improved somewhat. The only notable improvement in Montenegro is regarding the regularity of its government’s annual reporting on its work.

Finally, there has been no change in Albania when it comes to how the government reports on its work. With governmental annual reports and information on the implementation of government-wide plans and strategies largely absent, Albania is at the lower end of regional scale once again.

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23 April 2020 – “The Zagreb Summit: a moment of decisions for the EU enlargement?” event was organised today in collaboration with the Think for Europe Network (TEN) and the Clingendael Institute. The aim of the event was to provide a better understanding of the current state of the EU enlargement policy and to facilitate the exchange of views between leading experts and the public from the Western Balkans and the Netherlands.

The first part was a closed event, held according to Chatham House rules and featuring Dutch parliamentarians and experts from the region and the EU to share their perspectives on current developments in EU enlargement. In the second part of the event, which was open to the public, Srđan Majstorovic, Chairman of the Governing Board at the European Policy Centre – CEP, Milica Delević, Director of Governance and Political Affairs at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and Wouter Zweers, Research Fellow at the Clingendael Institute, discussed the effects of the COVID-19 Crisis on EU – Western Balkans relations, the prospects for the Zagreb Summit, the revised enlargement methodology as proposed by the European Commission, and the outcomes of the March European Council.

Regarding the new enlargement methodology, Majstorović highlighted that his advice to enlargement countries is to adhere to the new methodology and to focus on the issues that can be delivered within clusters that are defined with this methodology. “The new methodology is a positive sign, but there are no guarantees. What is most important for EU enlargement is the readiness of candidates, more credibility from the side of the EU, and the broader context in which the EU will find itself”, Majstorović said.

Delević also pointed out that “we should not blame the old methodology for everything”, even though “the new methodology does have positive points and less time lag”.

The EU – Western Balkans Summit (Zagreb Summit), originally scheduled to take place in Zagreb on 7 May, has been postponed until June. A new date will be sought in June in agreement with the President of the European Council, or a video conference will be organised at some point by the end of the Croatian Presidency.

“Croatia has managed to keep the enlargement process on the agenda of the Council – we need to take a moment to acknowledge the successes of their presidency in these difficult times”, Majstorović pointed out.

Majstorovic emphasized that having good political leadership is extremely important for the European integration process. “Political leadership is an important component of the integration process, required to avoid the politicisation of enlargement both on the sides of candidates and the EU, respectively. Integration needs to be based on democratic principles and dialogue within democratic institutions. One of the governments showing such effective political steering is the current North Macedonian government. I would like to see more governments showing such a positive political direction”, Majstorović said. He also stressed that the EU should play a bigger role in the coordination of public health policies. “Pandemics do not recognise national borders and we will need to work together – the EU must therefore take the Western Balkans countries into consideration!”

Majstorović also mentioned that the COVID pandemic brings with it the necessity for closer cooperation in the Western Balkans, requiring sharing public health, and other, capacities. This cooperation needs to be enhanced,” he underlined.

The event is organised within the Europeanisation Beyond Process project, with support of the Open Society Initiative for Europe.

The webinar video can be viewed here.